Thanks for the heads up. If you remember where it was published or find a link to the study please let me know.

Now, I just tried my honest best to dig that study up again (saw it weeks ago online), but I couldn’t – hopefully you will come across it at some point. It has a quite alarming photograph of a quadriceps biopsy in cross-section showing great white masses among the pink fibre-ends, alongside a photo of a healthy-looking biopsy from a young man who was exposed to the same training. The subjects were all initially atrophied from hospital bed-rest.

I am glad to hear someone de-emphasize the importance of a particular rep-range. I used to subscribe to the view that low reps and very heavy loads are essential to build up strength and mass (as opposed to endurance) until I learned of the training methods of the Indian wrestler ‘The Great Gama’ – he became an absolute tank by doing thousands of push-ups and bodyweight squats – his ‘progression’ was all about just doing it until he can’t do it any more, every time, with the same load. This striking example stuck in my mind until I began to notice other, similar examples. Progression is definitely king and makes the most intuitive sense, biologically.

As long as your routine effectively addresses all the major muscle groups, changing it up is unnecessary. I only change clients’ routines occasionally if I feel they need to focus more on particular muscle groups or if it is required by a change in goals, an injury, or other factors.

Isometric training can be very effective when done correctly, however it appears strength improvements may be limited to the position or range of motion trained, so it may not be ideal when performed exclusively.

There is a lot of research on microtrauma and hypertrophy. This is something I will be covering in the book, with references. Delayed onset muscular soreness is not completely understood, but there does appear to be a relationship with microtrauma.

While a very high level of strength is possible without equipment, I do not believe one’s optimal level of strength can be attained without some kind of external resistance, or as quickly.

I tried my first 3×3 today. Quite an exceptional workout – short, intense and painful. I went for the squat/row/incline db press combination…

Do you think a weekly workout plan of
Tuesday 3×3
Sunday ’strength’ day with much lower reps

sounds valid?

This blog is one of the best, on the web. Any word on when your book is ready for release?

Thanks…

I agree with your comments on the study above – outright “bullshit” it just goes to show that a Ph.D doesn’t mean you know much about “exercise”.

Lance Armstrong is currently in Australia bike racing, an article called “The Power Within” appeared in one of our national newspapers outlining his HR, VO2 max, muscular leg power, and the amount of watts he can produce. Lance Armstrong holds legendary status as an endurance athlete and I would never attempt to lessen his legendary status as an endurance athlete.

Doug McGuff in BBS “Global Metabolic Conditioning” (p.38-39), Greg Anderson in his article has addressed the Cardiovascular/VO2 max testing procedures. Doug McGuff statyed that, “The problem with VO2 max testing is that when your only tool is a hammer, the whole world becomes a nail”. I presume that all Lance Armstrongs Cardiovasular/VO2 testing is done on a bike.

The other point that I wanted to make from the article in this is statement, “Through the years of training, Armstrong muscles changed from 60 percent slow-twitch fibre to 80 percent”. Besides the endurance training required for ridng in races like the Tour De France I would presume that Lance Armstrong must do a lot of high power output training on leg extension machines but his muscles fibers are converting to slow twitch – to me the newspapaer article inferring that it is better to have more slow twtich fibers” – “confusing” is it better to have slow twitch or fast twitch fibers?

The newspaper article also states “A Better Alternative energy source? “If the electricity created by Armstrong’s 500 watts of power output over 20 minutes was converted to energy for you household he could power.” (many household appliances)…”When riding uphill Armstrong can generate almost 500 watts of power over 20 minutes. A healthy 25 year old can exert the same wattage over almost 30 seconds. A typical fit sportsman might be able to exert that pressure for three minutes before reachinjg the fail point”.

Is Lance Armstrong’s peak power output from slow contractions or from fast contractions – endurance is supposed to based on slow steady state training but here we have an athlete with something like 1000 times more peak power output than the average person. Is peak power output from slow twitch fibers or fast twitch fibers? I wonder if Roger Fielding could answer?

Thanks